I Forgot
by Triforce Garner
Summary: Caius's words, however cold and ruthless, had struck a cord in her heart. Now, armed with a gun and rage the truth had set free, she has the Director himself in her sights. He will pay, so help her he will pay.


Author's Note:

And thus I continue my habit of writing for characters I otherwise don't like in a feeble attempt to change my ways. Oh well.

I also, apparently, love making people wait for updates on stories I should be writing and end up writing random oneshots instead. (I don't that was sarcasm plz don't kill me) So yah I must be an asshole DX

**Warnings**: mentions of violence and some mildly gory details along the way followed by death. Therefore, JUST IN CASE, it's rated 'M'. Thanks for understanding!

Like I said, it's pretty mild and this is sort of a little offering before 'Lightning Returns' finally drops on us in two months since I have nothing from the first two games. I really love this series and I feel pretty sad that I haven't done much for it despite playing the first two as much as I have. I'm really excited about the third one and because of that my desire to write for it has come back. I might even do something for the first one or even the third...

Ha ha, once I finally finish 'Pick Your Battles' that is...I swear what a joke lol I can totally do better. Sorry for not updating! XD

* * *

'I Forgot'

* * *

The tabletop was cold. The air was colder. Her heart though...

It burned. It was on fire, a fire that desired nothing but just to live. She let out a soft sigh as her nimble, gloved fingers traced the edges of the aforementioned tabletop. Just letting the moment be.

A tear crept down her face. Silently she cried. What else should she feel? She knew it was meant to be. Every night she had dreamt of falling, of being in so much pain. She thought for sure she was living the truth, when she was the biggest lie of them all.

Every day in the hallways she'd notice people less and less, or rather, it was the other way around. People stopped greeting her. Stopped calling her name. Stopped seeing her at all.

When she arrived at meetings people at first were confused, blankly staring at her like she was some foreign being.

"Are you sure you're in the right place, Ms?"

Yes, of course she was! She had a key card, a name plate, her own office with a desk and everything! Just who did these people think she was, anyway?

From there, it felt like things worsened slowly. She was looking through a glass wall at everyone around her. The next day, the day after, people stopped seeing her at all.

'I don't understand.'

The only bright light in her life anymore was Hope. He was the people's eyes; Their view of the future. Not only that, but Hope was the only one who cheered her up.

She stood up and with a terrible force filled with as much anguish as she could muster, she shoved everything off of his desk.

Glass shattered, papers flew, tears poured... She had lost so much. Finally the nightmare was making sense to her. Her breath became heated as she felt the rush of impending doom fall heavily on her shoulders. It both scared her and fueled her anger to the point where confused, illogical rage was the only thing she saw anymore.

She plucked a small, silver key from a pile of broken glass and twisted it in the locked drawer. As she opened it, she pursed her lips. Her angry fire was suddenly fed again at the sight in front of her.

Inside were Hope's most important treasures. His tape recorder for when he monologued his thoughts to the empty air, his picture frame that held a long lost picture of himself, his mother, and his father...some scraps of paper with notes of his latest project...

A gun. As Hope was the end-all-be-all leader of the company now, his life was always in danger. He had been firmly against the idea before, but now he'd been so sure of seeing the future of his new Cocoon that he'd thrown all hesitance to the wayside and employed the safest measures he could to protect himself.

She grasped it in her hand, her emotions simmering above a boil in her head. It drove her mad.

She knew, for sure, that Hope was another contradiction. Caius had told her as much. Hope, of all people, was just as much a farce as she. He was supposed to turn crystal that day, that tragic day when Orphan died. It was the Goddess's will that he was brought back from his prison to become who he was.

Hurt and loss filled her with determination. He would die for his crime. He had been the lie all along.

As she left the room, her head began to feel foggy. She knew her time was running out, Serah and Noel would come back and take her out of the timeline again. Of that she was certain. No tricks of any sort would save her from that unfair fate.

As she made her way down the hall she thought about the pillar holding Cocoon and how that would one day be destroyed. She shook her head. No more distractions.

The plan she had earlier implemented had already been set in motion without the results she wanted. She had planted the duplicates, her will inside them, and saw them off with one goal in mind: revenge.

Inside the halls, they fought against the gun-toting guards with Hope at their side demanding an explanation. They had the things beaten to turn them off, after their bid not to harm them had turned up fruitless. The duplicates, so many of them, had been taken away in hand cuffs should they awaken. They were ruthless.

She was present at the time, watching slightly from afar with a look of fear painting her face as a ruse.

Hope then spun on his heel, a look she'd never forget on his face. It was of pure fury.

He demanded, again, to know why those robotic humanoids attacked inside the building. No one offered a single piece of information considering only one person was responsible.

A meeting was called. All keycards were given a shorter length of access around the facility. The only person capable of walking where they pleased were herself and...

She grit her teeth. Gods, it wasn't fair! She wasn't a l'Cie and she certainly wasn't deserving of that tragic death she'd been told she'd had. Caius, in his own personal anguish, held no details back as he described to her the last breath she took and all that it had entailed.

The wires of the building, hanging and sparkling with the charge going through them. Her eyes fluttering as she let out labored breath after labored breath. Trees swayed outside and above her at the now destroyed roof. The beam lay heavy on her right shoulder, barring her from escape.

And the blood had been everywhere.

Sniffling, she wiped her tears and grabbed a doorknob, opening it and pointed up the gun in her hand.

She was, at first, met with silence. All computers in the laboratory where she'd walked were now trained on her spot.

"I began to realize what you were doing when I remembered that look on your face on the way back to HQ...right after that attack this afternoon and that meeting was called...I thought about it..."

She hadn't realized how her chest had tightened, her breath becoming harder and harder as if she'd run to this room instead of walk. She grimaced as he turned around.

"Alyssa..." he started softly, his hand raised as he leaned backwards to sit on the desk now behind him.

"Don't! Don't start this Hope! You know, so now you have to die!" she shouted, flicking back the safety on the gun.

"Why?" he asked, cocking his head sideways as he spoke in a level, gentle voice. His hand remained raised, outstretched toward her. She remained pointing her gun.

"Ugh, look around you for Goddess' sake Hope! Look! Really look at the world around you right now! Do you see these notes? Hundreds of them! You're sitting in my office and yet you can't see the life I've been living for so long! It's all around you and yet..." she paused, her voice cracking from the screaming she'd been doing.

"I know, Alyssa." he said. He rose as she stepped closer, stretching his hand to grab her gun.

"Alyssa, I'm so sorry."

She bowed her head, letting out a sob. She felt him pull away the gun and then she was buried against his uniform, his arms around her.

"It's not fair..." she cried, her hands wrapping around his middle sadly. She just kept on, even as he pet her hair silently and squeezed her shoulder.

For a few minutes they stood there. The gun wasn't in her hand, but in his holster. She didn't care though. Life was over. She could feel the pain in her shoulder where the beam hit her so long ago. She felt her shirt was warm and wet, and she hugged him harder.

"It hurts!" she cried, biting her lip in agony. Was this what it was like to go away? Was this how she died?

Was this what Serah and Noel felt now?

"It's ok, I'm here Alyssa." Hope promised. Looking down, he had noticed the blood forming on her body as if it was literally decaying in his hands and chose not to say a word.

When he felt her begin to shake he slowly started to rock her, just waiting patiently for the end. He dared not ask if she wanted anything from him, she would ask if she did.

"Hope?" she asked weakly. Hope pressed his hand against the back of her head, setting his chin on it as he continued to rock her.

"Hmm?" he answered.

"It's really c-cold in here. Y-you, should tell the electricians to do something about that. This i-is the f-uture for crying o-ut loud..." she whispered. Hope smiled sadly. The temp was at 71 degrees Fahrenheit.

"I guess I should cut their pay too, lazy aren't they?" he chuckled. He felt her giggle against his chest.

"Yah..." she answered back.

Suddenly her knees buckled and she slipped down. Hope, however, had been waiting for it and gently fell with her, holding her up and against him as her body grew limp. Her hands no longer held him back, and her head no longer moved.

It was as if her body had suddenly remembered that it was trapped and couldn't move.

"So cold in...in h-ere." came her broken speech. Her lips and fingertips were rapidly turning purple, and now her eyes became blurry. "C-can't see either. M-ust be a f-fog in here f-from all the c-old."

Hope shushed her softly, tilting his head back and closing his eyes as he continued to pet her head, her bloodied limp body still propped against his chest. Her head still lay on his shoulder.

He knew, from the way she had fallen, that her spine had been damaged or broken in some horrific way. She was literally paralyzed against him as death came back for her.

A death long since separated from her by the walls of a paradox had finally come calling, an axe in it's hand from breaking down the wall that had come between them in the first place...that wall that had kept her alive all this time.

And then,

Her breathing stopped. Her bodying jerked violently just for a moment, and then everything went silent. Hope didn't move a muscle. He simply sat there, his mouth pulled tight and his eyes shut closed as his hands simply held his deceased assistant...

His friend.

Then, a second after, the weight on his chest disappeared. His eyes popped open and he looked down at his hands as he continued sitting in the floor.

Nothing was there anymore, as if it had vanished into thin air.

Slowly he turned and pulled himself to his feet with the help of the desk behind him, his other hand grasping his face. His memory was foggy and the small pieces of her had been so clear and vivid before were now almost blank now.

Even her name was lost on his lips.

The door suddenly swung open and he looked up with wide eyes.

"Director Hope sir, we need you downstairs! The test for the extraction of the crystals holding the pillar are about to start soon!" said a young engineer. Hope nodded, his face still half hidden behind his free hand while the other continued to support him against the desk.

"Right, we'll see you in a moment sir!" he called as he turned to leave.

"Wait!"

The engineer halted, slowly turning back to meet Hope's gaze.

"Sir?"

Hope sighed heavily, letting his hand fall from his face as he looked the other man in the eye.

"Do I, have an assistant?"

A moment of silence met them before the engineer spoke up cautiously. "Um, no sir."

Hope looked away immediately, getting up and folding his hands behind him as he looked at the computer screens behind the desk.

"Thank you, that will be all. You may return to your post." he said softly.

"Y-yes sir."

The door closed.

And a quiet he'd never really felt before met him.

Sinking back onto the floor, his hand rising to hold his head once more as the other wrapped around his middle, he cried.

He cried as hard as he could.

* * *

Author's Note:

If you couldn't tell from my comment in the note above, I really hate Alyssa Zaidelle. And, as per my habit of 'writing for characters I hate', I made one for her. I didn't like her character, but her story was pretty compelling and so I was inspired to write this. Okay now I'm done explaining! XD

Annnnnnnnnnd DON'T FORGET TO REVIEW LOVE YOU KTHXBYE!


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